Split the class into two groups.
One group works with the scene during which Jim's paternal grandfather, Amos, looks in on him when he's lying in his mother's bed as an infant. This group's actors will consist of the three uncles and Amos. The rest of this group will consist of directors, who, with the help of the text, will decide what they want the actors to do, how they want them to look, what they want them to say (if anything), etc. The group will be told that three people have to lift, or pretend to lift, the chair on which the person who plays Amos is sitting. The teacher will also tell the group that Amos' facial expression has to change at least twice and that the uncles' facial expressions...each one of them....has to change at least once during the scene. The teacher will also tell the group that they must be facing the classroom head-on. The other group will consist of a person to play the approximately 13-yr-old Jim Glass, Jr. and three people to play the three uncles. The rest of the group will be directors. This group will create the scene during which Jim looks through the first-floor window of his granfather's house that looks into the room where his grandfather lays on his deathbed. Again- the directors will use the text to decide how they want Jim and the uncles to look, what they want them to say (if anything), etc....The group will be told that Jim and the uncles must be facing the rest of the class. Again- Jim's facial expression must change at least twice and the uncles' facial expressions must change at least once during the scene. I think this is a good way to cause students to realize the strong emotions the old man, the unlces and the adolescent may experience during the first and second scene described...This will help the students to pay attention to two very important parts of the book; in these scenes, one is shown or reminded of the bond that exists between Jim and his unlces and, however tenuous it may be, the bond that exists between Jim and his grandfather. A discussion would follow each scene...the discussion would be focused on why the actors' faces looked the way they did...why the actors said what they did....keeping in mind what's actually in the text and how/why the directors distanced themselves from the text (if they did so) ~Grace Persico
"Big Day started at ten o'clock, when Mr. Dunlap would unlock the school doors. Mama did not seem to care that cars and trucks already lined the school driveway, that everybody and their brother was coming in from the countryside by the truckload, by the wagonload, and on foot, to see the new building and ride the rides; she did not seem to care that they would take up all the shady places to put their dinner on the ground. She especially did not care that Penn Carson might get in line for the Ferris wheel before Jim did.
"By 8 o'clock, Jim did not see how he could live two more hours" (Earley 85)
#1: Volume and Speed
Break the class up into about three or four groups. Each group will have an activity to perform before their classmates.
This first group will take this sentence:
"mama did not seem to care that cars and trucks already lined the school driveway,that everybody and their brother was coming in from the countryside by the truckload,by the wagonload, and on foot..."
The students will start out at a whisper and by the time they reach the first comma they will have gradually raised their voice to about a 4 on a scale of 1-10. They will start out at a 4 and gradually increase their volume and speed of speech by the next comma / when they read the word "truckload" and they do the same thing for each of the words between the commas so when they are screaming "and on foot." This way of reading the text will show the anxiety developing within Jim and how Earley usues punctuation to convey the sense of urgency as well demonstrating exageration through the volume of the voice.
#2: Multiple Mamas
This gorup will elect a student to play Jim and the rest will be the "mamas." They will, through performance, reveal how Earley can get even the reader feeling anxious and annoyed at Jim's lollygagging mother. The "mamas" will circle around "Jim" and mime various tasks. For instance one student could pretend to sweep, another write a letter in the air, etc. The purpose of this exercise is to fill in the subtext of the sentence "mama did not seem to care" by showing that Jim's mother is preoccupied with her own responsibilities and the distance between the world of child and adult. The repitition of that particular phrase in the text will be represented by the multiple "mothers."
#3 : The Greener Grass on the Other Side The last group will be the group of people that have already arrived. The students should develop a script, or plan out what they will perform in front of the class to give those who are outside of that group the impression that these performers are having a great time. This group will perform last so that the two group who have already performed are on the other side of the classroom. They can do things like laugh in pairs, pretend to eat ice cream, really anything that conveys fun. The purpose of this exercise is for the other students to feel how Jim felt and experience the feeling of being of missing out, or being left behind. - Kristen Gross
First I would split the class up into groups of three and ask them to read the prolouge together, looking for clues of setting and character, and write down words or phrases that brought them to their conclusion. I would then have them act out the breakfast scene, since it is here we see the uncles and Jim's relationship with them. I would assign students to groups of five, for each character, and have each group re-create the scene for the class. In performing the scene we can see how the text provides us with a description of the characters that can be interpreted by their individual performances. This can be done in a majority of the scenes, this scene is considerably important however, because we are introduced to major characters. This can be done two ways:
I could narrate the scene for the group, or each group could have a narrator, depending on size of the class. It could be done with dialouge or without, which would have the students creating a dumb-show. Both ways would work and I think both ways should be tried, and students could determine what the advantages to both are, and what they learned from each performace about the characters and scene. -- Christina Russo
Performance Ideas
One group works with the scene during which Jim's paternal grandfather, Amos, looks in on him when he's lying in his mother's bed as an infant. This group's actors will consist of the three uncles and Amos. The rest of this group will consist of directors, who, with the help of the text, will decide what they want the actors to do, how they want them to look, what they want them to say (if anything), etc. The group will be told that three people have to lift, or pretend to lift, the chair on which the person who plays Amos is sitting. The teacher will also tell the group that Amos' facial expression has to change at least twice and that the uncles' facial expressions...each one of them....has to change at least once during the scene. The teacher will also tell the group that they must be facing the classroom head-on. The other group will consist of a person to play the approximately 13-yr-old Jim Glass, Jr. and three people to play the three uncles. The rest of the group will be directors. This group will create the scene during which Jim looks through the first-floor window of his granfather's house that looks into the room where his grandfather lays on his deathbed. Again- the directors will use the text to decide how they want Jim and the uncles to look, what they want them to say (if anything), etc....The group will be told that Jim and the uncles must be facing the rest of the class. Again- Jim's facial expression must change at least twice and the uncles' facial expressions must change at least once during the scene. I think this is a good way to cause students to realize the strong emotions the old man, the unlces and the adolescent may experience during the first and second scene described...This will help the students to pay attention to two very important parts of the book; in these scenes, one is shown or reminded of the bond that exists between Jim and his unlces and, however tenuous it may be, the bond that exists between Jim and his grandfather. A discussion would follow each scene...the discussion would be focused on why the actors' faces looked the way they did...why the actors said what they did....keeping in mind what's actually in the text and how/why the directors distanced themselves from the text (if they did so) ~Grace Persico
- "Big Day started at ten o'clock, when Mr. Dunlap would unlock the school doors. Mama did not seem to care that cars and trucks already lined the school driveway, that everybody and their brother was coming in from the countryside by the truckload, by the wagonload, and on foot, to see the new building and ride the rides; she did not seem to care that they would take up all the shady places to put their dinner on the ground. She especially did not care that Penn Carson might get in line for the Ferris wheel before Jim did.
- First I would split the class up into groups of three and ask them to read the prolouge together, looking for clues of setting and character, and write down words or phrases that brought them to their conclusion. I would then have them act out the breakfast scene, since it is here we see the uncles and Jim's relationship with them. I would assign students to groups of five, for each character, and have each group re-create the scene for the class. In performing the scene we can see how the text provides us with a description of the characters that can be interpreted by their individual performances. This can be done in a majority of the scenes, this scene is considerably important however, because we are introduced to major characters. This can be done two ways:
I could narrate the scene for the group, or each group could have a narrator, depending on size of the class. It could be done with dialouge or without, which would have the students creating a dumb-show. Both ways would work and I think both ways should be tried, and students could determine what the advantages to both are, and what they learned from each performace about the characters and scene. -- Christina Russo"By 8 o'clock, Jim did not see how he could live two more hours" (Earley 85)
#1: Volume and Speed
Break the class up into about three or four groups. Each group will have an activity to perform before their classmates.
This first group will take this sentence:
"mama did not seem to care that cars and trucks already lined the school driveway,that everybody and their brother was coming in from the countryside by the truckload,by the wagonload, and on foot..."
The students will start out at a whisper and by the time they reach the first comma they will have gradually raised their voice to about a 4 on a scale of 1-10. They will start out at a 4 and gradually increase their volume and speed of speech by the next comma / when they read the word "truckload" and they do the same thing for each of the words between the commas so when they are screaming "and on foot." This way of reading the text will show the anxiety developing within Jim and how Earley usues punctuation to convey the sense of urgency as well demonstrating exageration through the volume of the voice.
#2: Multiple Mamas
This gorup will elect a student to play Jim and the rest will be the "mamas." They will, through performance, reveal how Earley can get even the reader feeling anxious and annoyed at Jim's lollygagging mother. The "mamas" will circle around "Jim" and mime various tasks. For instance one student could pretend to sweep, another write a letter in the air, etc. The purpose of this exercise is to fill in the subtext of the sentence "mama did not seem to care" by showing that Jim's mother is preoccupied with her own responsibilities and the distance between the world of child and adult. The repitition of that particular phrase in the text will be represented by the multiple "mothers."
#3 : The Greener Grass on the Other Side
The last group will be the group of people that have already arrived. The students should develop a script, or plan out what they will perform in front of the class to give those who are outside of that group the impression that these performers are having a great time. This group will perform last so that the two group who have already performed are on the other side of the classroom. They can do things like laugh in pairs, pretend to eat ice cream, really anything that conveys fun. The purpose of this exercise is for the other students to feel how Jim felt and experience the feeling of being of missing out, or being left behind.
- Kristen Gross